Lasqueti Island: the bylaw audit

6 findings: 2 in bylaws not yet adopted, 4 in bylaws in force. Read on 2026-09-19. Every quotation is a link to the words themselves.

The bylaws, and where each one stands

  • Lasqueti Island Land Use Bylaw No. 78, 2005, Amendment No. 1, 2026 (draft) (not yet adopted). A staff draft, not yet read. It would raise the minimum lot area for subdivision in Subdivision District A from 4 to 4.05 hectares, but only on lots of 64.74 hectares or more. Staff recommended on 6 July 2026 that the project go no further. The committee instead asked that the draft and its project charter come back at the earliest available meeting (resolution LA-2026-014). Staff wrote that the bylaw could not be substantially completed before the end of the committee's term. It would need readings, a hearing or notice, and Executive Committee approval.
  • Lasqueti Island Land Use Bylaw No. 78, 2005, Amendment No. 1, 2025 (not yet adopted). Read a first time on 8 December 2025; public hearing 4 May 2026; abandoned on 6 July 2026 (resolution LA-2026-015, proceed no further). It would have changed 4 hectares to 4.05 hectares in eight places.
  • Lasqueti Island Land Use Bylaw No. 78 (in force). In force; consolidated 14 March 2025 (Bylaw 104, fibre-optic cable). The live listing is byte for byte the copy our text was made from.
  • Lasqueti Island Official Community Plan Bylaw No. 77 (in force). In force; consolidated January 2011. A review of the plan and the land use bylaw was paused in 2022 awaiting a response from Snaw-naw-as First Nation and has not restarted; on 6 July 2026 staff cited capacity and the committee discussed a business case for the next term.

Correspondence Tony Aly reported sending

Tony confirmed sending the following letter on 3 October 2026. The text shown is the version we supplied for sending, with URLs written out for plain-text email. We have not independently verified the exact transmitted copy or received a response to this letter.

Lasqueti draft Bylaw 108 – subdivision threshold and map unit

Reported sent:
To: northinfo@islandstrust.bc.ca

Read the prepared letter
Dear Lasqueti Island Local Trust Committee,

Please confirm whether Bylaw 108 has received a reading and publish the current draft. The staff report itself identifies that, under the proposed 64.74-hectare trigger, a 64.73-hectare parcel could have more subdivision potential than a slightly larger parcel. It also notes a mismatch between subdivision and permitted-dwelling calculations. The replacement map legend says “4.05 minimum parcel area” without a unit. Our audit links the draft and staff report (https://abolishislandstrust.org/bylaw-audit/lasqueti).

Please resolve the threshold and dwelling mismatch, and specify hectares in the legend before any further reading. Bylaw 107 was abandoned in July; my comments concern the later staff draft, not that withdrawn instrument.

Sincerely,
Tony Aly

A letter you can send

Bylaw 108 was a staff draft in the July 2026 record, not a bylaw that had received first reading. Bylaw 107 was abandoned. Confirm the current stage and text before sending.

To: the Lasqueti Island Local Trust Committee
Subject: Lasqueti draft Bylaw No. 108: subdivision threshold and missing map unit

To the Lasqueti Island Local Trust Committee,

I am writing about the staff draft of Lasqueti Bylaw 108, and ask for its current text and stage. [Say here whether you own, rent or live on Lasqueti Island, and where.]

These are the points that concern me:

- Under draft Bylaw 108 a lot of 64.73 hectares could be divided into more lots than a lot of 64.74 hectares, and the dwelling rule would no longer match the subdivision rule.
- The new label draft Bylaw 108 writes for the Subdivision District map says "4.05 minimum parcel area" with no unit.

The words of the bylaw behind each point are quoted, with a link to the place they can be read, at https://abolishislandstrust.org/bylaw-audit/lasqueti

Please resolve the threshold under which a slightly smaller lot can yield more subdivisions than a larger lot, reconcile the dwelling and subdivision calculations, and state hectares in the map legend before the draft receives a reading. I am not asking about the abandoned Bylaw 107.

Yours respectfully,
[Your name]
[Your address on Lasqueti Island, or your interest in the trust area]

Open an email to northinfo@islandstrust.bc.ca

Change anything you do not agree with, and say who you are and where you live or own land. A few sentences in your own words are worth more than ours.

In bylaws not yet adopted

These can still be fixed.

Something left out · in a bylaw not yet adopted

The new label draft Bylaw 108 writes for the Subdivision District map says "4.05 minimum parcel area" with no unit.

Clause 2.1 replaces the map's label for District A. The first half says 4 hectare; the second half says 4.05 and leaves out the word hectare. The staff alternative wording on package page 31 repeats it. On a map legend that sets how small a lot can be, the unit is the rule.

  • “Subdivision District A (4 hectare minimum parcel area on lots having an area less than 64.74 hectares, and 4.05 minimum parcel area on lots having an area of 64.74 hectares or greater)”

    Read it: page 36 of the Islands Trust’s own document

Two rules that cannot both be obeyed · in a bylaw not yet adopted

Under draft Bylaw 108 a lot of 64.73 hectares could be divided into more lots than a lot of 64.74 hectares, and the dwelling rule would no longer match the subdivision rule.

The Trust's own staff report says so. The draft raises the minimum lot area to 4.05 hectares only for lots of 64.74 hectares or more and leaves section 3.9(2)(a) at one dwelling per 4 hectares. Staff write that a lot of 64.73 hectares would have greater subdivision potential than lots of 64.74 to 64.79 hectares, and that there could be parcels where the dwellings permitted exceed the subdivision potential by one, so that a dwelling may have to be removed if the lot were subdivided. Staff count the total effect as 3 lots out of 1,307. The committee asked for the draft to come back anyway.

In bylaws in force

Something left out · in a bylaw in force

The streamside setback rule depends on Schedule D, and the clause that makes the schedules part of the bylaw lists only A, B and C.

Section 3.5(2)(b) applies the riparian setbacks to properties designated "RAR Applicable" as noted on Schedule D. The contents page lists Schedule D. Clause 2 of the enacting page, as the Trust publishes it, names three schedules as made part of the bylaw: A, B and C. Whether an amending bylaw added Schedule D without the consolidation updating clause 2 is something only the original bylaws can show; the published text does not say Schedule D is part of the bylaw.

Two rules that cannot both be obeyed · in a bylaw in force

The enacting clause says the bylaw applies to the area shown on Schedule C. Section 2.1 says the area shown on Schedule B.

Schedule B is the Planning Area and Zoning Map. Schedule C is the Subdivision District Map. Clause 2 of the enacting page adopts the schedules as the land use bylaw for the part of the trust area "as shown on Schedule C"; section 2.1 applies the bylaw to the part "as shown on Schedule B". The title line on the same page spells the committee's name "COMMITEE".

A leftover from an older bylaw or a repealed law · in a bylaw in force

The community plan rests its legal basis on section 884(2) of the Local Government Act and its non-conforming use rule on section 911. The Act now ends at section 797.

The rule that bylaws must be consistent with the plan is now section 478(2), and non-conforming uses begin at section 528 (BC Laws, read 19 September 2026). The plan was consolidated in January 2011 and its review has been paused since 2022. The land use bylaw, by contrast, has been updated: it cites section 514 for subdivision for a relative.

Numbering and proofreading · in a bylaw in force

Section 4.17(2)(d) points to "Clause 4.17(c)(i) and (ii)"; the dock sizes are in 4.17(1)(c)(i) and (ii).

The subsection number is missing from the reference. The next line of the same list gets it right, citing 4.17 (1)(d). It is the only slip of its kind we found in the bylaw.

What we checked and found sound

  • Bylaw 78: the auditor follows 50 cross-references and finds every target present. We read six of them against their targets (3.3(1) to Table 1 in 3.3(4)(a); 3.8(2) to 3.9 on dwellings per lot; 3.11(2) to 2.6 Covenants; 4.5(2) to 3.10 on lots divided by a zone boundary; 4.18(3) to the floating work shed in 4.18(2)(d)(i); 3.5(2) to itself) and each lands on the subject the citing words describe. The one defect, in s. 4.17(2)(d), is a reference the auditor does not parse because it is written as a clause.
  • Bylaw 78 has been kept current on statute numbers: it cites section 514 of the Local Government Act, not 946.
  • Draft Bylaw 108 and abandoned Bylaw 107 (package pp. 32 to 36) read against Bylaw 78. The words they delete ("4 hectares" in s. 3.11(1)(a), "four (4) hectares (9.88 acres)" in ss. 3.9(2)(a) and 3.10(1)) are the words in the bylaw.
  • The staff table on package p. 28 checked by arithmetic: 64.74 / 4 = 16.2 (16 lots), 64.74 / 4.05 = 15.99 (15 lots), 64.8 / 4.05 = 16.0 (16 lots). It is right.
  • Live listings for Bylaws 78 and 77 downloaded 19 September 2026: SHA-256 identical to our copies.
  • Minutes of the Lasqueti committee meetings of 8 December 2025, 9 February, 4 May and 6 July 2026 and the public hearing record of 4 May 2026 read. The only other bylaw moving was administrative: Public Notification Bylaw 106.

Open questions

Things that looked worth a second reading and that we could not prove. They are not findings.

  • The project behind Bylaws 107 and 108 aims at a 10 acre minimum. Plan 77, Policy 1 under section 3.1, says parcels should be at least 4 hectares (9.88 acres) in Subdivision District A, and the project charter puts plan amendments out of scope. 4.05 is not less than 4, so there is no inconsistency to record, but the plan and the project state different targets.
  • At the 4 May 2026 information meeting the planner agreed that under Bylaw 107 "some very large lots ... would lose the ability to have one additional dwelling". Bylaw 107 is dead; if its wording for s. 3.9(2)(a) returns, that effect returns with it.
  • Plan 77 names the Ministry of Water, Land and Air Protection, the Ministry of Sustainable Resource Management and the "Agricultural Land Reserve Commission". We did not confirm from a provincial source what each is called now.
  • Bylaw 78 s. 3.11(5) cites an agreement with the Ministry of Transportation and Highways by its date. That is the historical name of a dated document and we did not treat it as stale.
  • We did not compare plan 77 and bylaw 78 zone by zone for disagreements (step 6 of the brief).